Sunday, October 14, 2007

Results, October 8-14

There was quite a bit of joshi puroresu action this weekend, along with some straggling results from earlier in the week that I missed before.

Let's clean up the indy sleaze and sportz entertainment first. On Monday, former sumo and puro wrestler Ishinriki hosted "Dosukoi Pro-Wrestling" from Shinjuku FACE, with a card of mixed tag matches. He ran a similar show last year. The highlight was the main event, where Yoshihiro Takayama and Ayako Hamada defeated Azumi "Facecrusher" Hyuga and Ishinriki. Hyuga tried to emulate Don Frye, but Takayama had the last laugh in this match.

Also on Monday the 8th was something called UGP T-1 Grand Prix, also at Shinjuku FACE. UGP Mask debuted with her partner Black Panther, but they lost to Onryo and \(^O^)/CHIE. In the main event, there was a 6-person tag for the UGP Cup and 2.3 million yen. President Futami (the only man in the match), T-1 Mask 2 (said to be Megumi Yabushita), & Aya Sakurai (who was briefly with GAEA years ago before quitting) defeated the team of Yumiko Hotta, Shark Tsuchiya, and Mika Mizunuma when Futami rolled Mika up. Egads, that sounds bad.

CHIE was much less successful in her home at HUSTLE, as she was defeated by "Monster K" Toshiaki Kawada in under a minute.

The action on Saturday was generally more conventional. The Ito Dojo hosted their first anniversay show at Shinjuku FACE. Trainee Chiaki Machida can not only ride a unicycle, but she is undefeated as a pro-wrestler, beating Midori in her debut. In the main three matches, we had Yumiko Hotta, Kaoru Ito, and Ayako Hamada defeat Mai Ichii, Ayako Sato, and Manami Toyota, respectively. Manami was the latest in a long line of big names to fall victim to the AP Cross. A lottery was also held and teams were determined for a tag tourney at Ito's next show, to be held in December.

We had several shows on Sunday the 14th. K-DOJO had an event produced by Apple Miyuki that featured a one-day trios tag tournament. Apple's team (including Boso Boy Raito and Quiet Storm) beat the team of Yuu Yamagata, TAKA Michinoku, and JOE in the semifinal, but failed in the final versus Yuji Hino, Shiori Asahi, and Makoto Oishi. The Apple Miyuki Army, much like Chicago Cubs fans, wait until next time.

The OZ Academy were in Ibaragi. Sayuri Okino defeated Toshie Uematsu in a Next Challenger Determination tournament match; she'll face the winner of a later match between AKINO and Kyoko Kimura. The most interesting result was Chikayo Nagashima and Carlos Amano trading pins against each other in two different tag matches. It seems like they are feuding. More about that later.

Itabashi Green Hall hosted a pair of events. NEO's crew had the early show. The main event saw Kaoru Ito & Ayako Hamada retain the NEO tag belts over Misae Genki and Aya Yuki, as Genki fell to the AP Cross, which is like kryptonite in 2007. They also set up a lot of matches for the Korakuen Hall show in early November. Genki will try again to get back the NEO tag championship, but this time she's calling on Yoshiko Tamura to get the job done against Kaoru & Ayako. Haruka Matsuo will defend the NEO/NWA Pacific titles for the first time against the maestro of Ice Ribbon, Sakura Emi. I hope NEO is turning Matsuo into a bitchy conceited heel, because Emi is going to be a total crowd favorite.

JWP had Itabashi for the late show. Manami Toyota introduced Etsuko Mita as her mystery tag partner, and they teamed with Kaori Yoneyama to beat the trio of Tsubasa Kuragaki, Kayoko Haruyama, and Tojuki Leon, as Leon ate a Death Valley Driver from Mita. So while Mita plays with Ice Ribbon girls in NEO and makes us pine fondly for the good ole days of the L.C.O., she has serious business in JWP. JWP's show next Sunday, at Shinjuku FACE features several exciting matches. I'll get into those in the next post, with next week's schedule.